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The idea of highways being filled with self-driving cars may be alluring, but it has highway safety experts raising numerous questions about common contemporary issues like drunk driving, seat belt use and how other motorists might react to a car without a driver behind the wheel.

“Trucks are going to be around for a very long time.”

Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second-largest mining company, is focused as much on driver-less trucks and automated drills as conventional shovels and loaders these days. That means it needs a whole lot more high-tech workers.

Self-driving truck technology being developed by Caterpillar Inc. at its Tucson, Ariz., division headquarters will soon be used more extensively by iron ore mines in Australia

Delphi’s self-driving car efforts in Pittsburgh and elsewhere will go by a new name, the company announced Sept. 27.

Ford will begin testing self-driving cars on ride-hailing company Lyft’s network with human drivers at the wheel for backup, the companies said Sept. 26.

As the Obamacare reform debate rages on in full force, U.S. Sen. John Thune doesn’t have his sights set entirely on the headline-stealing topics of health care and tax reform. The always busy South Dakota Republican is also eyeing legislation for the growing autonomous vehicle market, or self-driving cars.

Autonomous vehicles are the wave of a rapidly approaching future that is already bringing increasing amounts of “smart” technology to cars and trucks, and could eventually make passengers of everyone in a vehicle.

The technology that gives cars superpowers to see around corners and through walls won’t be on the first self-driving rides hitting the road in the next few years.